iProspect today announced that results from a recent survey indicate that 56.7 percent of Internet users use the same search engine or directory when they are looking for information, and another 30.5 percent of Web users have a few specific search engines they use regularly. A small amount of Web users, 12.8 percent, said they use a different search engine each time, depending on what they are looking for at that moment. This shows that search engine loyalty truly exists across a vast (87.2) majority of Web users.

The iProspect Search Engine User Attitudes Survey results also revealed that specific search engines have more loyal users than others. Looking at the loyalty rate within the top search properties, according to MarketShare, Google has a loyalty rate with its users of 65.8 percent, Yahoo! has a loyalty rate of 55.2 percent, MSN has a loyalty rate of 53.7 percent and AOL nets 48.6 percent loyalty from its users.

Additionally, iProspect found that 91.8 percent of respondents would modify and re-launch their search using the same search engine after being dissatisfied with the first three pages of results returned by their initial search. This figure is up significantly from the 71% figure recorded in a similar iProspect survey fielded in June, 2002. This suggests that over time users have developed even more confidence in their search engine of choice than in their own ability to create a query that will return their desired results.

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